1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an image processing apparatus, an imaging device, a moving object device control system, and an image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, the development of a body structure of an automotive vehicle was carried out for the purpose of promoting the safety and protection of vehicle occupants or pedestrians when the vehicle collides with another vehicle or an obstruction. In recent years, however, with the advance in information processing and image processing technologies, a technique for speedily detecting other people and vehicles in front of an automotive vehicle has been developed. An automotive vehicle incorporating an automatic braking system has already come on the market, which utilizes the above technique to automatically put on brakes on the vehicle before collision and autonomously prevent the vehicle from colliding with people and other vehicles.
In order to automatically put on the brakes of the vehicle, performing measurement of other people and vehicles in front of the vehicle with a high level of accuracy is needed. A technique for performing measurement using images obtained from a stereo camera is practically utilized. Further, there is a related art technique using images obtained from a stereo camera for recognizing a human and an object like a car by performing image processing. For example, see Japanese Patent Publication No. 2015-075800.
First, a V-Disparity image is generated from some images obtained from a stereo camera. One axis of the V-Disparity image is a vertical direction coordinate of an image obtained from a stereo camera. The other axis of the V-Disparity image is disparity of images obtained from a stereo camera. A pixel value of the V-Disparity image is a frequency of disparity. Next, a road surface is detected from the V-Disparity image generated. A U-Disparity image is generated by using the detected road surface. A vertical axis of the U-Disparity image is a horizontal direction of an image obtained from a stereo camera. A horizontal axis of the U-Disparity image is disparity of an image obtained from a stereo camera. A pixel value of the U-Disparity image is a frequency of disparity of an object which exists on a higher position than a road surface. Then, a human and an object like a car are recognized based on the U-Disparity image which has been generated.